The following morning Richard resolved to speak to his wife. He knew she deserved her privacy after such a shock, but she had to know as well as anyone that time was not their friend. He had given her three days; he could not give her any more.

Once again he breakfasted with his sisters, not that any of them spoke a word. He was trying to decide the best way to approach Iris, attempting to arrange his words into coherent and persuasive sentences, when she appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a frock of the palest blue—her favorite color, he’d deduced—and her hair had been dressed into an intricate twist of braids and loops and honestly, he didn’t know how to describe it except that she looked more done-up than he’d ever seen her.

She’d donned armor, he realized. He could not blame her.

Iris hovered in place for a moment, and he shot to his feet, suddenly aware that he’d been staring. “Lady Kenworthy,” he said with full respect. It was perhaps too formal, but his sisters were still at the table, and he would not have them think he held his wife in anything but the highest regard.

Iris glanced at him with icy blue eyes, dipped her chin in a small nod of recognition, and then busied herself at the sideboard. Richard watched as she spooned a small portion of eggs onto her plate, then added two pieces of bacon and a slice of ham. Her movements were steady and precise, and he could not help but admire her composure as she took her seat and greeted them one by one: “Marie-Claire,” then “Fleur,” and finally, “Sir Richard.”

“Lady Kenworthy,” Marie-Claire said in polite greeting.

Iris did not remind her to use her Christian name.

Richard looked down at his plate. He had just a few bites of food left. He wasn’t really hungry, but it felt as if he ought to be eating if Iris was, so he took a slice of toast from a plate at the center of the table and began to butter it. His knife scraped too hard against the bread, the sound grating and loud in the overwhelming silence.

“Richard?” Fleur murmured.

He looked at her. She glanced rather pointedly at his toast, which, it had to be said, was looking very sad and mangled.

Richard gave her a glare, for no logical reason whatsoever, and took a savage bite. Then coughed. Bloody hell. It was dry as dust. He looked down. All the butter he’d attempted to spread had scraped up onto the knife, all curled up like some sort of tortured dairy ribbon.

With a growl he slapped the now rather soft butter onto the toast and took another bite. Iris stared at him with a disconcertingly steady gaze, then said, with no inflection whatsoever, “Jam?”